Record Guides

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Doesn't it seem like it's been a while since there's been an interesting one published? Did the internet kill off this idea? I look back at that Spin Alternative Record Guide and hey, that's a fun book. It'd be cool to see something interesting & new done w/ the whole record guide idea. I hear Drag City is publishing one soon that might be different -- anyone know anything about it?

― Mark (MarkR), Wednesday, 16 October 2002 15:42 (twenty-three years ago)

gregg turkington (amarillo records, zip code rapists, neil hamburger, faxed head, etc.) and brendan kearney (world of pooh, caroliner, horse cow, faxed head, etc.) released a book entitled Warm Voices Rearranged which features anagram record reviews of bands and albums.

as for great record guides, i personally prefer Ronald Thomas Clontle's Rock, Rot And Rule.

― gygax!, Wednesday, 16 October 2002 15:54 (twenty-three years ago)

whoops, the former is the drag city guide mark was referring to.

― gygax!, Wednesday, 16 October 2002 15:56 (twenty-three years ago)

the book that most are waiting for - Simon Reynolds "Post Punk" book due "late 2003".

― DJ Martian (djmartian), Wednesday, 16 October 2002 15:58 (twenty-three years ago)

I know nothing about the Drag City book, but I suspect there will be a flurry of new ones in roughly three years. I'm still a firm believer in upheaval. The last big explosion were in 89-91 (and alot of record guides were published then) and 96-98 (and another flurry of record guides were published then). There should another big, thunderous change around 04-05.
Side note: Rolling Stone and Spin were behind the times last time. Rolling Stones last guide was published mere months before the Grunge wave went mainstream, and the Spin Alt Guide came out a couple years before all the Rave/Electronica got big enough for your grandma to know about it.

― Lord Custos Alpha (Lord Custos Alpha), Wednesday, 16 October 2002 15:58 (twenty-three years ago)

There needs to be an ILM book. Discuss.

― Aaron W., Wednesday, 16 October 2002 16:08 (twenty-three years ago)

I've been lobbying for nearly a year for Tanya Headon to put out her own Album Guide.

― Lord Custos Alpha (Lord Custos Alpha), Wednesday, 16 October 2002 16:10 (twenty-three years ago)

I wonder what her 'scale' would look like:

5 Stars: Supposedly Classic, but really Isn't.
0 Stars: Pants
-1 Star: Crud
-2 Stars: Rubbish
-3 Stars: Vomit
-4 Stars: Diarrhea
-5 Stars: Vomitting up Diarrhea

― Lord Custos Alpha (Lord Custos Alpha), Wednesday, 16 October 2002 16:39 (twenty-three years ago)

There needs to be an ILM book.

Possible titles:
Who in This Bitch Loves Music?
Haha You Are All Rockists There Is No Such Thing as Influence
Anal Congress With Goats (I guess that could be the ILE book)

― Andy K (Andy K), Wednesday, 16 October 2002 16:43 (twenty-three years ago)

Anal Congress With Goats (I guess that could be the ILE book)
Ah...so thats where te "obligatory reference to Goat Wank" comes in.

― Lord Custos Alpha (Lord Custos Alpha), Wednesday, 16 October 2002 16:50 (twenty-three years ago)

Here's where my advocacy of the All-Tanya Guide to Music started and...well, ended

― Lord Custos Alpha (Lord Custos Alpha), Wednesday, 16 October 2002 16:54 (twenty-three years ago)

yeah that would be a super fun read

― g (graysonlane), Wednesday, 16 October 2002 17:43 (twenty-three years ago)

Too late folks; the Trouser Press is back! For alternative music, there's nothing better. The online version doesn't read as nice as the print version, but hey, at least they're back.

...You heard it here first.

― christoff (christoff), Wednesday, 16 October 2002 18:18 (twenty-three years ago)

Except there were already a few threads about that very revival. You heard it here first, Christoff: check the archives. ;-)

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 16 October 2002 18:55 (twenty-three years ago)

Of course, my intent was insinuate the collective here. ack.

― christoff (christoff), Wednesday, 16 October 2002 19:01 (twenty-three years ago)

Clearly the only salable title is Oh no! The ILM Guide to Music! OH NO!!!

― Justyn Dillingham (Justyn Dillingham), Thursday, 17 October 2002 04:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Lord C: If Mil Millington can get a book deal off a weblog there is zero reason Tanya couldn't.

― Tom (Groke), Thursday, 17 October 2002 07:34 (twenty-three years ago)

But his book is a novel not a compilation of columns. At which point I guess we discover that Tanya also hates fiction?

― alext (alext), Thursday, 17 October 2002 10:04 (twenty-three years ago)

It's a book which grew out of a blog-based online site and then got novelised, a la Bridget Jones from Fielding's columns. I think Blue Lines may even have linked to "Things Me And My Girlfriend..." back in the day! In the same way if Tanya were to do a book pitch she'd need some overarching 'concept' behind it - a list or a history or something.

― Tom (Groke), Thursday, 17 October 2002 10:11 (twenty-three years ago)

Or each major ILM contributor could write a set of reviews and Tanya could point out where, how and why -- specificially -- we're all wrong.

― Lord Custos Omega (Lord Custos Omega), Thursday, 17 October 2002 13:02 (twenty-three years ago)

on the contrary--that's exactly what would make it a good book

― M Matos (M Matos), Wednesday, 23 October 2002 02:04 (twenty-two years ago)

But isn't that what Tom said though? I read it that it would be pointless as a consumer-guide, but Tom has a hatred for such things, and believes this would be better than one.

― Chewshabadoo (Chewshabadoo), Wednesday, 23 October 2002 02:28 (twenty-two years ago)

One good thing about an ILM guide is that for pretty much everything you'd be able to find one writer who loved it and one who thought it was shit. This would make for a staggeringly useless what-should-I-buy guide so yes great idea.
Every review would have to be a point/counterpoint. The overrating and underrating would cancel one another out.
Don't like this guys opinion, get a second opinion, get a twenty-second opinion.

― Lord Custos Omega (Lord Custos Omega), Wednesday, 23 October 2002 16:10 (twenty-two years ago)

Note that there's going to be another edition of the Rolling Stone guide published sometime next year (I wrote a bunch of entries for it, including a very long one on John Coltrane).

― Douglas, Thursday, 24 October 2002 11:55 (twenty-two years ago)

Yes, but will anyone take a Rolling Stone record guide seriously nowadays? (I mean, besides me. I'm a total junkie for record guides, and I know I'll buy it. The question is: am I wasting my time with that one?)

― Lord Custos Omega (Lord Custos Omega), Thursday, 24 October 2002 18:00 (twenty-two years ago)

We can take the Coltrane entry seriously, at least.

The last RS Record Guide I bought was in the mid '80s, when they completely wrote off the Replacements (it was after Stink & they said something like "Second-rate Ramones with guitar solos -- will we hear anything else from them? Who cares?"). I guess that's the danger of making those sort of predictions.

― Mark (MarkR), Thursday, 24 October 2002 18:04 (twenty-two years ago)

I find it kind of ironic that they published the last one (1991) about a month before the whole Nirvana/Grunge thing changed all the rules.

― Lord Custos Omega (Lord Custos Omega), Thursday, 24 October 2002 18:23 (twenty-two years ago)

RS did some sort of Alt-Rock-A-Rama or something in the mid-90s which I got for my birthday. It was a great toilet read cuz it had lots of cute little lists and "indie rock celebs" and whatnot. If ILM did a book, it should be like that... lots of lists which don't take more than 5 minutes to read.

― Aaron W., Thursday, 24 October 2002 18:42 (twenty-two years ago)

I think the last big RS record was from '92 or so, just as alternative music was breaking. I think Nevermind got 4 stars, as did Ten ("Pearl Jam is blessed with the best blood line in Seattle" or something). Those guides are actually very good for getting a handle on the crock crit concensus at the time.

― dleone (dleone), Thursday, 24 October 2002 18:47 (twenty-two years ago)

"last big RS record *guide*"

― dleone (dleone), Thursday, 24 October 2002 18:47 (twenty-two years ago)

("Pearl Jam is blessed with the best blood line in Seattle" or something). Those guides are actually very good for getting a handle on the crock crit concensus at the time.
Side issue: Anytime you hear some nitwit say that Nirvana was the onl;y true grunge act and all the rest were Nirvana-be's, remind them of this fact:
"Pearl Jam and Mudhoney were made from members of Green River, a band which predated Nirvana by nearly 3 years. Saying Nirvana begat Pearl Jam is like saying that Joy Division is just a bad ripoff of the Cure."

― Lord Custos Omega (Lord Custos Omega), Monday, 28 October 2002 19:04 (twenty-two years ago)

Subthread: what mag/media source/website would you like to have publish their own record guide?

― Lord Custos Omega (Lord Custos Omega), Monday, 28 October 2002 19:32 (twenty-two years ago)

Easy. The Church of Me.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 28 October 2002 19:39 (twenty-two years ago)

Hmmm. Not ringing any bells. Post a link?

― Lord Custos Omega (Lord Custos Omega), Monday, 28 October 2002 19:43 (twenty-two years ago)

Marcello's blog

― alex in mainhattan (alex63), Monday, 28 October 2002 19:50 (twenty-two years ago)

Ahhhh. Thanx.

― Lord Custos Omega (Lord Custos Omega), Monday, 28 October 2002 19:56 (twenty-two years ago)

seven months pass...

Back in the summer of 2001, Ryan Pitchfork told me he had grand schemes for a Pitchfork record guide. This was around the same time he wanted to do a feature on the "worst album covers of all time." Obviously, neither of these plans have come to fruition. I could care less about the latter, but does anyone know if the former is still in the works?

Lately, I've been revisiting the SPIN Alternative Record Guide. This book (1995) was an absolute godsend to a 16-year-old like me who'd just discovered Pavement and Sonic Youth and Frank Zappa. I heard about many, many bands for the first time here. And it's still compulsively readable (featuring ILM's own Chuck Eddy, Frank Kogan, Mark Sinker, Simon Reynolds). Sometimes I wish they'd do an update, just because I'm curious who'd they include today (how has the alt-rock landscape changed in the last 8 years? does their canon still hold?) -- but sadly know that the likelihood of SPIN helming that project is pretty low.

― jaymc (jaymc), Thursday, 29 May 2003 14:50 (twenty-two years ago)

I got the '92 RS record guide when I was a wee lad for Christmas, and I'm surprised how much it holds up now that I'm past my Alternative-Rock-Or-Die phase. Sure, J.D. Considine has a heavy liberal bias thing going (yay Midnight Oil, boo Big Black), but I like the less than reverent stance taken on most underground heroes. I find it pretty useful. From what everybody's saying it looks like the new guide has a ton of different writers where the last one only had three or four. Curious to see how that works out.

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Thursday, 29 May 2003 22:26 (twenty-two years ago)

I still like the two RS recod guides Dave Marsh edited in 1978 and 1982/3. I found the next one, the 1991ish one, staid, over-earnest and often poorly written and just plain wrong about lots of stuff. Plus I hated the half stars.

― phil wise (beachbum), Friday, 30 May 2003 09:16 (twenty-two years ago)

three months pass...

The Drag City book mentioned above, Warm Voices Rearranged, by Brandan Kearney and Gregg Turkington came out last year and is a wonderful (and honest) change from all these record reviews kowtowing to really lousy bands. These two gentlemen use artists and their album titles, sometimes alone, sometimes in sentences (even harder to do) to create anagrams which comment on the quality of the "artists" and/or their work.

To make an anagram - you use all of the letters in a word or phrase (no adding or deleting) to form new word or phrase. It's fairly easy to do this if you simply want to make new words but the point of anagrams is that the newly created words comment on or continue the original phrase.

So, while some of the anagrams are simple,

David Bowie - Let's Dance
****
Listened? Ow, bad advice.

Joni Mitchell's Mingus
****
Is not much...slim jingle

most succeed in actually including band member's names, descriptions of subject of songs, instruments used, history of the band, etc. along with all sorts of obscure music trivia that these two have collected in their years of music appreciation.

For example,

The Beastie Boys' massive hit, Licensed to Ill
****
Obese novices yell. This lame shit aids Tibet?

Derek and the Dominoes; great double-LP, Layla and Other Love Songs
****
Plan: This dull old knave dared destroy Beatle George's home. A non-o!

( Eric Clapton, star of Derek, etc. had an affair with George Harrison's wife, whom the song Wonderful Tonight is written about.)

and, one of my favorites,

The legendary Temptations' new effort is Together Again
*****
Irate fan wept: "It's not them! The fine, goodly greats are gone!)

(This lineup of the group included not a single original member.)

And last but not least, a great review of Wings:

Their musically varied London Town is a prized record amongst most Wings and Beatles fans.
****
A rowdy finaly word: Linda's teriffic frozen vegan "meat" pies do better than Ms. Ono's dismal cult songs.

Disclaimer: The anagrams were thoroughly checked for mistakes and typos, so any seen here are my own typing mistakes.

Enjoy the book! I love it. Available on Amazon.com, or support your local bookstore and request it if they don't carry it.

― Emily Ready, Sunday, 31 August 2003 03:24 (twenty-two years ago)

one year passes...

I'm still a huge fan of the Rolling Stone Album Guide that came out in '92. Getting this book as a teenager in the pre-Internet days was like being handed the Rosetta Stone. And I'm always glad I got this one instead of the Trouser Press Guide, since this one attempted to cover all genres. In fact, my first country purchase (Folsom Prison) was directly because of this book. Sure, it's dated now, but most of the essays are still fantastic reads.

I also have a special place in my heart for the Penguin Guide to Jazz, which I got around the same time. Again, it has its flaws, but like the RS guide I still find myself browsing through it time to time.

― Keith C (kcraw916), Sunday, 8 May 2005 02:09 (twenty years ago)

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